Obama's highs school pals in Hawaii: Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme Left: Kelli Allmans OAHUAN 1979 Yearbook. Obama played basketball at Punahou with Orme, who the alumni magazine says is now a building contractor. President Obama may have had a tough couple of weeks, but newly-released images will remind him of his more carefree days. Sheriff: Cleveland man shot after attacking man with hatchet at Morgan County campground Outside of their regular vacation activities, the First Couple (along with Vice President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden) released their holiday playlists. While Obama got saddled with the nickname Barry OBomber, Maurer said he also "got teased a lot for taking hard to make shots.". The idea that his biggest struggle was race is [bull]." The White House says Obama teed off Saturday at the nine-hole course at the Sunnylands retreat in Rancho Mirage with childhood friends Bobby Titcomb, Greg Orme and Michael Ramos. The Latest: Vacationing Obama dines at Hawaii restaurant One of those kids was Orme, a smart, respectful teenager from a white, middle-class family. "He was very intelligent and witty. Or f------ Eskimo." Some of that crew has stayed in Hawaii, but others have moved off island. The race to track them down and coax them to open up likely will include reporters as well as opposition research experts for political rivals. McLachlin said he survived a severe stroke shortly before Obama was elected president in 2008. The president was returning to the White House on Monday. Obama and his family have . (Courtesy Maya Soetoro-Ng ), The life stories, when the presidential candidate tells them, have a common theme: the quest to belong. In it, he wrote, was an article and two accompanying photographs of an African-American man physically and mentally scarred by his efforts to lighten his skin. Barry was a very confident player who liked to drive to the basket. kscharnberg@tribune.com kbarker@tribune.com, Column: For the Chicago Blackhawks remodel to work, their new house had better be built on a strong foundation, Merrillville food and beverage tax edging closer to reality, Remains found in Rockdale more than 25 years ago identified as Aurora woman, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. But the reality of Obama's narrative is not that simple. I dont know why people have slammed him like that, said Maurer. He'd pick them up if they fell down,'' Darmawan recalled. This article originally appeared in the May 23, 2013 edition of TIME magazine underneath the title, Obamas Grand Old Party. To subscribe to TIME, click here. "You need to find Greg Orme," instructed Obama's old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. While Obama rocketed to political prominence, his friend headed down the troubled road Obama had feared he was following. Wearing a white shirt and dark-colored shorts and a baseball hat, President Barack Obama finished 18 holes of golf at the Kapolei Golf Course in Kapolei, Hawaii. In December 2006, as Mr. Obama decided on his first presidential campaign, the friends talked about how the race would complicate their next getaway. Coaches have recalled how he never went anywhere without a ball. The images from 1979 show a grinning 17-year-old Obama in a white suit with his arm around his date, Megan Hughes, before they headed to the party at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. Obama confirmed in an interview earlier this month that the Ray character in "Dreams" actually is Kakugawa. It can be very racially hostile, especially if youre white or black. Though Orme spent most afternoons with Obama and considered him one of his closest friends, he said Obama never brought up issues of race, never talked about feeling out of place at Punahou. I was certainly oblivious to a lot of what he references, Hale said in an interview. Pic of the day: Barack Obama at prom | Salon.com The havoc time wreaks on fashion spares no one, not even the president of the United States.In a newly unearthed photo published Thursday in TIME magazine, a 17-year-old Barack Obama is seen. "Punahou was an amazing school," Smith said. The Obamas did skip Hawaii in 2007 and instead the friends joined Mr. Obama in wintry Iowa for the January 2008 presidential caucuses. "It's their world, all right," Ray supposedly shouts at Obama. Titcomb has worked as a commercial fisherman and an airline employee, according to the school's alumni magazine. The Latest: Obamas, friends tour Hawaii Islamic arts center Most classmates and teachers recall an easygoing, slightly chunky young man, with the same infectious smile he sports today. When asked about the discrepancy, Obama said in a recent interview, "It might have been an Ebony or it might have been who knows what it was?" Hawaiian Vacation Reveals Importance of Family, Friends to Obama When kids teased him, Obama yelled back, "Curang, curang!" They were. "It was a really fun, happy time. 2023 TIME USA, LLC. Millions of American teenagers will go to proms this year. The images from 1979 show a grinning 17-year-old Obama in a white suit with his arm around his date, Megan Hughes, before they headed to the party at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. He was tenacious.. "But he wanted to remain at Punahou. Allman said the two couples sipped Champagne before going to the dance, and then an after-party. So neither of us ever started and that was hard, he said. We had great vibes between us, she told TIME. Through the haze of the 70s, they recall only the rat baller who was always up for a game. In Hawaii, Media Surfs Obama's Past - POLITICO The reality was less tidy. And from the first day of 5th grade right up until his graduation in 1979, the young man was one of only a small number of black students at a school heavily populated by the children of Hawaii's wealthy, most of them white and Asian. "He would protect the smaller ones." "Luckily he could swim. ', 'I'd made my share of friends at school, gone on the occasional awkward date,' Obama wrote, 'And if I sometimes puzzled over the mysterious realignments of status that took place among my classmates, as some rose and others fell depending on the whims of their bodies or the make of their cars, I took comfort in the knowledge that my own position had steadily improved.'. Mr. Orme was unable to travel to Hawaii for the recent holiday, but the others called him twice. Her date was Greg Orme, Obama's best friend. Whatever misgivings Obama had about Punahou, attending the school was largely his decision. Hes kind of in and out. All say he was teased more than any other kid in the neighborhood--primarily because he was bigger and had black features. IE 11 is not supported. Aging photos show Obama and Orme decked out in 1970s fashion with their dates before attending a high school prom. He took out (Osama) Bin Laden. "But it was only playing." But the foursome rarely goes more than a few months without reconvening in one arrangement or another. . Still, the story of his early years highlights how politics and autobiography are similar creatures: Each is shaped to serve a purpose. The motorcade arrived in Kapolei around 11:30 a.m. ___ For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Obama recounts taking two white friends, including Orme, to a party attended almost entirely by African-Americans. A close friend and track teammate of Kakugawa, John Hagar, also said he was surprised by Obama's description of the character representing Kakugawa as an angry young black man. The fun may wear off, if history is any guide. She became estranged from her husband, Barack Obama Sr., after his departure for Harvard and rarely saw the group of friends that they had made at the University of Hawaii. Oblivious to all of this was a perpetually smiling toddler the entire family called Barry. I really admire that.. After Obama's prom date with Megan Hughes and before settling down with Michelle during his time studying at Harvard, President Obama seriously dated two women: Alex McNear was a 20-year-old literature lover he met at Occidental College in 1981 before he transferred to Columbia in his junior year. Now they mainly just golf more than 30 hours in six outings this vacation and trash-talk, just like in the old days. The teacher, who still lives in Obama's old neighborhood, remembers that he always sat in the back corner of her classroom. Barack Obama as a sophomore with the junior varsity basketball team at Punahou School, Honolulu, in 1977. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote in "Dreams." Right around then, we really started getting into basketball., Obama was all business when it came to "the game. Teachers, former playmates and friends recall a boy who never fully grasped their language and who was very quiet as a result. So far, it has been a narrative spun almost entirely on Obamas terms and in his own words -- most prominently in his bestselling memoir, Dreams From My Father.. Choom Gang Reunites on Golf Course for Obama's Birthday Weekend - Breitbart 00:53 GMT 31 Dec 2014 So far, the candidacy of the man known by his high school friends as Barry Obama has been good for the Hawaii economy and bad for newsroom budgets. Now lots of people are interested in helping graduates of Punahou School jog their foggy memories, trolling for revelations about a young man who spent much of his time that season riding the bench. "Those were robust years full of energy and cacophony, and she loved all of it," Soetoro-Ng said of her grandmother, who has lived alone since her husband died in 1992. The not-so-simple story of Barack Obama's youth A spokeswoman for People said the reporter, West Coast correspondent Maureen Harrington, did not take the list. "The brothers," as Lewis Anthony Jr., an African-American in the class of 1977 put it, hung out together, often talking about issues involving race and civil rights. He was always very calm, very level-headed, very rational. She said a woman from People came to visit with her and then walked away with the Punahou reunion list and all its phone numbers. Secret Service stops man flying drone near president's motorcade "If this story is eight paragraphs, seven of them go to Greg. Obamas family is already insulating itself. When it rained, Obama and his pals went bowling, instead. In his poem, An Old Man, there are glimpses of a tortured adolescent as well as a budding orator. Obama and his mother joined her new husband, a kind man who later would become a detached heavy drinker and womanizer, family members in Indonesia say. These have been the stories told about the first two character-shaping decades of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's life, a story line largely shaped by his own best-selling memoir, political speeches and interviews. Im a Republican, but Ill endorse Barry for anything he wants, said Tom Topolinski, who backed his old buddy twice and voted this time for Trump. Obama spending long holiday weekend in Southern California But Furushima, too, is learning to be on guard around the press. You need to find Greg Orme, instructed Obamas old basketball coach, Chris McLachin. So did Maurer, who is now a pastor in Houston. "But it wasn't a race thing," he said. "They own it and we in it. In a striking snapshot with his grandparents, Stanley smiles proudly while Madelyn hugs him fiercely, as though she doesn't want to let him go forth into a world far from the remote island that for so long had been his home. The three men - Mike Ramos, Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from . College would be his next stop. "All of them were imperfect but all of them loved him fiercely, and I believe he took the best qualities from each of them." There are, however, chapters in Obamas high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. In its reissue after he gave the keynote address at the Democratic convention in 2004, "Dreams from My Father" joined a long tradition of political memoirs that candidates have used to introduce themselves to the American people. And having a Hawaiian in the White House made them all proud. Yet many say they have trouble reconciling their nearly 30-year-old memories with Obamas more recent descriptions of himself as a brooding and sometimes angry adolescent, grappling with his mixed race and the void left by a father who gave him his black skin but little else. Now, I think hes a better golfer., Orme and Obama became pals not long after the future president arrived at Punahou as a fifth grader. Basketball was the great equalizer, he said. A boy wants to find his place in a family where he is visibly different: chubby where others are thin, dark where others are light. When a friend gave him shrimp paste instead of chocolate, he yelled, "Curang, curang!" He would bring up worldly topics far beyond his years. Speaking up for yourself., I gave them more playing time, McLachlin chuckled. We were all cracking up and everyone was smiling," she told the magazine. Barry did a good job but I think we needed a change," he said. Visits With School Pals Are a Touchstone on President's Trips to Hawaii But he seemed to have coped pretty well.. Dan Hale, the 6-foot-7-inch star center of the 1979 Punahou basketball team, said Obamas depiction of Hawaii as a place where race really mattered hardly resonates with him. He is undergoing what some have called the Profile Primary -- which is testing his ability to keep control of his public image, as journalists sketch portraits of the candidate as a young man and comb for contradictions and potential embarrassments in his past. Then there's the copy of Life magazine that Obama presents as his racial awakening at age 9. Barack Obama as a baby. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Hawaii had become a state only two years before Obama's birth, and there were plenty of native Hawaiians still deeply unhappy about it. They were like brothers, says Allman. Obama's motorcade left his Kailua vacation rental home at 10:48 a.m. under partly cloudy skies. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Ukraine soldiers shoot down enemy drones with drones of their own, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts. We didnt aim high enough., Every time I see him on television its surreal, said Topolinski. The U.S. military was expanding on the island of Oahu, home to the new capital of Honolulu. Since arriving more than a week ago, Obama has been out in public with one of his daughters only once, briefly, during a hike. 'It was a really fun, happy time,' she said. Israella Pareira Darmawan, Obama's 1st-grade teacher, said she attempted to help him learn the Indonesian language by going over pronunciation and vowel sounds. Since January, more than a dozen news organizations from around the globe, from the BBC to TV Asahi to People magazine, have dispatched reporters to Oahu. Cook wrote that she saw his perfect woman as 'very strong, very upright, a fighter, a laugher, experienced - a black woman I keep seeing her as'. Obamas presidential prospects have been fueled in large part by an arresting life story: The son of a Kenyan goatherder, he wrestled with his dual identities to become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and a member of the U.S. Senate. The first family has attended Titcomb's annual luaus in the past. , updated Hawaii friends Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, Punahou Academy classmates, were also on hand. The fourth person in the picture is Obama's date,Megan Hughes. Topolinski, who now lives in Washington state, said he lost touch with Obama after high school and they moved into different political camps. Hed tell us to move on if we got into it with another player. It is the same one that a young Obama wrote in the yearbook of a petite black-haired beauty named Kelli Furushima -- the object of his high school crush. In fact, it is surprising, based on interviews with more than two dozen people who knew Obama during his nearly four years in Indonesia, that it would take a photograph in a magazine to make him conscious of the fact that some people might treat him differently in part because of the color of his skin. If young Obama had struggled to find a place at Punahou, it was well hidden on this day as well. "He would be very helpful with friends. In his day, he was a better basketball player than a golfer. The foursome, according to the Associated Press, teed off with another eight players. The Secret Service stopped a man who briefly flew a drone near the president's motorcade Monday as the president and his friends were returning from golf at the Mid-Pacific Country Club. Hawaii is a melting pot, a very intense place if youre a kid. Obama was also known on campus for his basketball skills, and was sometimes called 'Barry O'bomber' for his jump shot. Made a strong case for them.. Or Japanese. On Sunday evening, Titcomb hosted a barbecue at his beachfront home for the entire contingent from . The annual gatherings perhaps speak to Mr. Obamas greater need for their connection now that he has what is called the loneliest job in the world. Bendix added that he was not shocked when Obama was elected president. The three men - Mike Ramos (right), Bobby Titcomb (not pictured) and Greg Orme (left) - are among the few people still in Obama's life who knew him long before he was famous. Some of the Betawi children threw rocks at the open Catholic classrooms, remembered Cecilia Sugini Hananto, who taught Obama in 2nd grade. He said that of the three, only Mr. Orme, another Punahou hoops player, was in the gang that Mr. Obama described. We played a lot of playground ball.. Kakugawa explained that he had meant they were playing in the world of the elite people who populated and ran Punahou--famous Hawaiian families like the Doles, owners of the pineapple fortune, or the original developers of Waikiki, the tourist mecca. One day while visiting his mother, who was working at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Obama passed time by looking through several issues of Life magazine. Orme would stay for the games. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 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But its fun to imagine that in one of those pictures, theres a girl in a pastel dress or a lanky guy in a white sport coat who will end up becoming the leader of the free world. In a newly unearthed photo published Thursday in TIME magazine, a 17-year-old Barack Obama is seen wearing a white dinner jacket as he poses with friends on the night of their senior prom in Hawaii. And he frequently made peace--even allies--with the very people who angered him most. For me its the unconditional love, its the nontransactional nature of the relationship that enduring quality that is something that I really value, he said. Although the Choom Gang has come to define Mr. Obamas high school circle owing partly to the presidents memoir, Dreams From My Father, and a notation that Mr. Obama made in his senior yearbook thanking the group for good times Mr. Ramos said in an interview after leaving Oahu this week that the phrase does not describe their circle. Others are more skeptical that the boy known as Barry felt the angst described by Barack. "I imagine other black children, then and now, undergoing similar moments of revelation," Obama wrote of the magazine photos in "Dreams." Back then, Punahou was a completely open campus, with several basketball courts where 20-something men from Honolulu would come in the late afternoon for what often turned into flashy, highly competitive pickup sessions. But twice that year the group gathered in Hawaii in August before the Democratic National Convention and in December after Mr. Obamas election. 18:47 GMT 23 May 2013. But spokesman Bill Burton said Obama "stands by his recollections of these events as related in his book." President Barack Obama Prom Photos | Time He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. In snapshots, the boy is a portrait of childhood bliss. Our second string should be playing more.'" He describes making friends easily, becoming fluent in Indonesian in just six months and melding quite easily into the very foreign fabric of Jakarta. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Digital Barry would be the only black person. When she told him she loved him, he responded with 'thank you', according to Maraniss, and they broke up in May 1985. 'We had great vibes between us.'. We get together for golf, he said. But he wanted to make everybody happy." For the president to be able to be with a group where he can be absolutely relaxed a group that knows him from his youth on, and who he knows are friends with him not because of what he became, but because of who he is is a really comforting and warm thing, said David Axelrod, Mr. Obamas longtime strategist. Barack in the Student Life section of Punahou Schools yearbook. ', In his memoir, 'Dreams From My Father,' Obama recalled a high school career that was, for the most part, ordinary 'marginal report cards and calls to the principal's office; part-time jobs at the burger chain; acne and driving tests and turbulent desire. Standing up for your buddies. Likewise for Mr. Obama, it seems. In August, Obama kicked off his 53rd birthday weekend golfing with the three friends in suburban Maryland before heading to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains. The sailboat the Manu Kai (bird of the sea, in English) is about to set sail behind him. Obama has told the story--one of the watershed moments of his racial awareness--time and again, in remarkable detail. Yet those who knew him disputed that during recent interviews. To them, the characteristics Obama displayed on the hardwood as one of the Sons of Oahu were evident in the way he handled the daunting responsibilities as leader of the free world. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. When Obama was in 4th grade, the Soetoro family moved. A youth living in a distant land searches and finds new friends, a new language and a heartbreaking lesson about his identity in the pages of an American magazine. Among his supporters, his likability and credibility have only been boosted by his stories of being an outsider trying to fight his way in. Even though Trump is a loose cannon at least he will stick up for what he believes.. These previously unpublished photos, obtained exclusively by TIME from Obamas schoolmate Kelli Allman (ne McCormack), show a 17-year-old Barack Obama on the night of his senior prom. And when Obama came back for Christmas, he got invited to join the new president at a pickup basketball game.